Honoring her Sicilian heritage, Ellie Perrotto once prayed to her favorite saint, St. Joseph.
“If you want me to put on a celebration feast for you on your day, please send me a sign.”
It was January in New Jersey. After her prayers she walked outside the church. There, blooming in the cold, winter afternoon sun, were white lilies, the flower of St. Joseph.
“It was a sign,” she says with certainty.
On March 19th that year, St. Joseph’s Day, Ellie and her friends served 300 people non-meat specialties like egg rolls, cannoli and fish pastas after Mass.
“It was during Lent so we couldn’t serve meat,” she explains.
The tradition, led by Ellie, continued for years until she and husband, Chick, moved to the Village of Gilchrist in 2013.
Ellie’s lifelong love affair with cooking – and recipes – began when she was young.
“My mother and I would have a cup of tea most days around four o’clock. We would drink tea and read recipe books.”
After Ellie and Chick married, her mother lived with them for 38 years and they continued the tradition.
“My mother loved to cook and collect recipe books. She passed all of that on to me.”
Ellie’s grandparents had emigrated to the U.S. from Sicily and there were 10 people in the poor, hardworking household. Her mother became the family cook.
“They never had dessert until my mother started baking for them.”
As Ellie grew up, cooking and playtime merged.
“I would stand at a counter and pretend that I was doing a TV cooking show – add this and blend that – and come up with something great.”
Automatic Retailers of America (now ARAMARK) was one of Ellie’s first employers.
“I read cookbooks like novels,” she says. “I’d read them while I ate my lunch.”
ARA also published an extensive line of expensive cookbooks.
“My father knew I liked them and one evening he said he’d buy them for me,” Ellie recounts sadly. “He died that night.”
During her career in retail managing high end boutiques, she continued to grow her cookbook collection. For a number of years she was the buyer for the dresses and accessories worn by the Miss America Pageant contestants, as well as a judge in the Miss New Jersey Pageant.
“Julia Child was once my favorite cook, but her recipes are complicated and would take all day to make. I like simple recipes and really good food.” She now favors Ina Garten, – “I’ve never had a bad recipe from her.” – Tyler Florence, and cookbooks from Gourmet magazine.
Much like professional musicians can ‘hear’ the music by reading the notes, Ellie can read a recipe and know what it will taste like. “I know ingredients that go together, how they will react and what they will taste like. I can usually tell if a recipe is good just by reading it.”
For many years she cooked for her church events, holidays and family occasions. Among the family, Ellie’s tortellini is legendary. One nephew gushes, “It’s what I call love!”
But not everything was a success. One of her favorite cooking failures happened when she and Chick went to California to visit their daughter, Sue.
“I made a big meal of tortellini and packed it well, I thought. By the time we arrived it was all stuck together in one big ball,” she laughs. “It tasted good, but it didn’t look much like tortellini.” Now she transports her tortellini in trays made for mini ice cubes – one pasta piece in each little section.
Cooking for Ellie usually means reading several different recipes and then combining the best of all of them together.
Chick types his favorites into the computer so when Ellie says, “What would you like me to make?” he can respond quickly with the recipe. “After 51 years together in the kitchen, Chick is still my favorite sous chef,” she says with a smile. “He does the chopping and prepping and helps me deep fry the cannoli.”
With over 800 books and 10,000+ recipes on hand one might wonder how she can keep them straight. “All of my cookbooks are categorized,” she says pointing out that the “Chocolate cake books are here and Ina Garten books over there.” The volumes fill a complete wall in her office, line up along the shelves of the kitchen island and reside in cabinets and shelves throughout the house. In a closet are recipe pages from magazines that she is sorting through and categorizing in binders.
“McCall’s was my favorite magazine for recipes until they stopped publishing.”
Prior to moving from New Jersey, Ellie estimates that she had more than 800 cookbooks. “I had to give some of them away before we moved, but I’ve picked up more since we moved here,” she laughs. Her total count now exceeds 800 volumes again. Among her most prized are the ARA cookbooks, from her father, and the handwritten notebook of her mother’s favorite recipes – well-worn, spine broken and held together with a ribbon and an elastic band.
Ellie also loves sharing her recipes and expertise. “If there’s a charity out there that wants to do a cookbook to raise money, I’d be glad to be part of it.” In the meantime, her collection grows. “I just bought a couple of cookbooks at the library in Pinellas Plaza this week,” she says. “I haven’t even had time to go through them yet.”
John W Prince is a writer and Villages resident. Learn more at www.GoMyStory.com.